Since the ’80s, Babyface has had a hand in some of soul’s most distinctive tracks. He performed the sumptuous “Whip Appeal,” which he cowrote with Perri “Pebbles” Reid, but he was also generous with songs for others. In the ’80s, he worked on smashes for Bobby Brown and his frequent collaborator Pebbles; in the ’90s, he was behind huge hits for boldfaced names in R&B like Whitney Houston and TLC, as well as for pop megaforce Madonna.